Sometime last year I posted about our trip to Amoy in Fujian Province (Amoy in Fujian; Xiamen in Mandarin) with its large round houses and some of the pictures showed women selling fruit from baskets which they carry along on a pole, just as milk-maids in the west used to carry milk pails.  These carrying poles are used throughout China.

To carry goods, the pole is either carried over one shoulder, or over the the top of the back across the shoulders.  In Fujian province the baskets are made of woven bamboo.  In modern day Shanghai, however, I have only ever seen them made from plastic crates:

But in all cases the women are using their hands to steady the pole to look after their precious cargo.

Not so, in the case below (I can’t lay claim to the ownership of this video and I’m afraid I  don’t know who to attribute it to), but in this case “look mummy no hands”: